Chapter 4
Jeannie did not go straight home. She drove her yellow convertible as fast as the wind right down the road and out of Swanik's Landing. It dipped and turned, and soon the air was heavy with the scents of summer trees and grass and countryside. She saw no other car; people went to bed early and rose as early and the only sound beside the roar of her engine was the rushing of a brook that ran somewhere near the quiet lane.
She wasn't thinking of Boy-O Carter. He wasn't on her mind, she told herself. At least, not his man's body or his cocky confidence. Boy-O Carter, she told herself, meant only one thing to her life-he had guessed.
She pulled the car off the side of the road and turned her engine off and sat quietly listening to the air. It was hard, hard to live in her parents' house again. The pressure never let up; neither did the fear.
Fear that they would find out just what she was doing in Chicago.
Every day was a constant effort to keep conversation light and gay, even to throw all their attention in Lewis's direction, so that they wouldn't think to ask her all the silly questions she could never answer. Questions about the Club Lido, about her repertoire of songs or about her boss, or about her salary. She tried to remember all the lies she had told, but the web was three years old and she knew she would have to slip up some time or another.
Chicago.
They had really believed her. Maybe they still did. And that glamorous lie she had thrown at them was only believable if you had spent your whole life in a small town six hours away from the big stinking city.
She lit a cigarette and stared at it, absorbed in the redness of its glow in the dark. Sooner or later they would have to find out what she did in Chicago. Boy-O Carter knew enough. Was he enough of a louse to find out more?
Maybe she would have done better to woo him just to shut him up.
"No." She spoke out loud to the red light of her cigarette. "Let him tell. Let them find out and put an end of this masquerade once and for all. If I'm lucky they'll kick me out of the house and I won't have to lie again. I won't have to go through this again."
When had the lies begum? How soon after she had left home had she started to stop their worrying by all the little lies? And then the big one?
Jeanni Jensen. It's a perfect name for a pop singer. Jean Jensen, a perfect name for a high-class chanteuse in am expensive dinner club like the Lido.
She'd been full of dreams when she arrived in Chicago, kid's dreams and high school dreams and Junior League's determination. The first thing she'd done was get herself a f'ny room that cost more than she had in her pocket. And then she had toured the night clubs, seeking the big bread-winning break.
None of the nice places had even auditioned her.
And even she had had enough sense to keep out of the strip joints. Although looking back she was surprised she'd left that door untouched.
Jeanni had had big plans and big dreams and no experience in going hungry. But that hadn't mattered. It's surprising how fast a person gets used to being hungry.
That's when the lies had started. Letters that had specialized in "I'm fine, folks. Met a man last week who thinks I'm very talented. His name is Tony Craig." She'd just read a name like that in a magazine story, and still thought real people had names that were that perfect. "Tony has connections with the big clubs." Little lies. Hardly worth telling except that they convinced everyone in Swanik's Landing that little Jeanni Jensen's sweet little voice was cut out for the big time. That she was cut out for the big time.
Tony. Tony Craig. She'd met him in her dreams. How many times? Thousands. Well, she had been only eighteen How the hell was she supposed to know the score? It wasn't her fault.
She lit another cigarette from the short end of the first.
When he came along and found her walking the streets again from agency to agency, from club to club, his name hadn't been as glamorous as the one she'd made up to placate her family with. It wasn't Johnny Rocco, or Rocky Johns. It was strictly an ugly name, to go with the short ugly man that sported it. Herman Huston, the man with the connections.
Hermie Huston, the man with the promises.
"You want to get into show business? Kid, you have meet the right man. One thing everybody knows about Hermie Huston, is that he has got friends."
"I've been in Chicago for six months, Mr. Huston, and nothing has happened. I've been to see all the booking agents in town. They're just not interested in new talent."
"Sure they are. But only when it comes recommended. Any of them audition you?"
"No. Only two of them even let me into their offices. Mostly I sit in the anteroom and hope and pray that I'll get on interview. Mostly I don't even get that."
"See, that's the way things are. A hundred girls to listen to, who's going to take the time? I mean, it's like picking a name out of a hat, or the phone directory and asking that alias if it wants a sweet job for a thou a week. Who's going to do that?"
"But that's their job, isn't it? To find new people the public will like?"
"Naw. Their job is to fill the night clubs every night. There are already a million performers with experience who can do that. The thing is, kid, to get an intro."
"How?"
Herman Huston had cleaned his nails with a metal file and the accumulated dust of three weeks fell onto his pin striped lap. Jeanni tried not to watch.
"Leave that to me, kid. Leave it to Hermie."
"Do you think you can do anything for me?"
He had been positive. One thing Jeanni had learned about Hermie was that even when he didn't know what he was talking about, he seemed positive. It was only possible to tell he was bluffing if you learned all the signs, like cleaning his nails-Hermie only cleaned his nails when he was lying. It was a funny way to tell, but infallible. That was why Hermie never played poker with his friends.
At the time she hadn't known that. At the time she knew nothing. So, stupidly, she'd given him her address and phone number and gone home to write all of it in a letter to her mother; and to wait anxiously by the telephone.
Hermie had waited a week before calling. Jeanni had almost given up.
"Listen, kid. I think I got you an entry, as the French call it."
"Mr. Huston, that's wonderful. With who?"
"A big night club owner. Here's the bit. He'll see you tonight. Now I'll be by to pick you up at eight. Look good, kid. Look your best."
Jeanni had spent her last five dollars on a hairdresser and the whole afternoon ironing her only evening gown. When she had finished she looked good; there was no doubting it. Good enough to take to bed, if your taste runs to eighteen-year-old virgins.
"God," Hermie had said. "How old are you, kid?"
Jeanni lied. And Hermie knew it. But he figured if you're old enough to lie you are old enough to take the consequences. Besides, there'd been money offered to him.
The man Hermie had lined up ran a night club. Only that wasn't what the customers called it. Or the cops either. The place always swarmed with cops. They came for their pay-off twice a week and the rest of the time they came to sample the merchandise. The house didn't mind paying the police off, as long as the money went right back into the profits.
Officially the Club Hades was known as a key club. Strictly a membership deal. The men came alone with specifications or they came with a mistress they didn't want their wives to see. Then they wrote the whole thing off on their expense accounts The membership was very select.
That first night Hermie took her to the Hades, Jeanni hadn't believed her eyes. She'd never seen such lush furniture. The cocktail lounge was coated with leopard skin and bright red satin. Every table had its own candlelight. When dinner was over, if the customers wanted privacy they just blew out their candles and no one could tell what everyone's hands were doing. Jeanni had noticed at the time. that there was very little talking in the large room. She didn't find out why until later.
The waiters all looked like Bogart on his bad days or in those movies about prison breaks. All of them were scarred or paralyzed somewhere above the collar but none of them seemed to mind. It was a very close fraternity.
One of them appeared with a message. "He's not ready to see you yet. He says that you should have a drink, but not on the house, Hermie."
"Okay, okay, nobody is asking for a handout. When the boss gets a look at my girl...." Hermie cast a sidelong glance at Jeanni to see if she was listening. She was...."and when he hears her voice, why he'll be sorry he didn't pick up the tab right from the start. This girl is-some songstress."
Jeanni had let her eyes drop demurely to her lap. She was modest. Then. But it hadn't taken her long to learn that men at the Club Hades never look at a girl's face, only at her body, and anything resembling modesty was laughable there.
Herman had bought her a soft drink and ordered a double bourbon for himself. That was like Hermie.
They had sat there for hours. Jeanni's eyes grew accustomed to the dim lighting in the room, but Herman had figured on that and seated her facing the wall. All she'd seen was the leopard skin wallpaper.
"He's waiting."
Another, waiter who had the same face as the first and a voice that announced the same background, led them up a winding golden staircase to a balcony that had one door leading off it.
"Here she is." Hermie led Jeanni into the room. He, tried to manage a swagger for her benefit, but even she could see that he would have rolled a peanut with his nose, if the boss had asked him to. "Well, come in, sister." Hermie pushed her into the center of the room.
It had been the way that Mike Manelli looked her over that had tipped Jeanni off.. It had been his cold black eyes that had told her that she was not in the kind of club her mother would approve of. But running, she sensed instinctively, would get her nowhere.
Manelli had walked around her and his eyes took in every nuance of her body.
"Not had." He'd offered her a cigarette. "How old?"
"Eighteen."
"That's more than I could get out of her, boss." Hermie's voice had pushed that peanut for him. "You really got a way about you. boss."
"Herman tells me that you want to be a singer."
"That's right."
"I've got an opening here, it so happens. Are you any good?"
"I don't know."
"Sing for ma."
"Here? You mean now? Without a piano or anything?"
"Sure. You're a singer. Sing."
Jeanni answered the command in his voice. She was afraid that one of those gangster waiters would come in if she didn't. That was how it had all happened to her. When she could have backed down, she'd been too frightened to try. And when it got to be too late, it hadn't mattered.
She hadn't been in very good old voice. Her first chance to sing for an employer, and fear had shaken her melody and fear had jumped into the lyncs.
She broke off and apologized. "I don't know why I went flat. If I had a piano-"
"Flat? You didn't go flat, sweetheart." Manelli had stood very close to her. "I think you've got a lovely voice." He'd offered her another cigarette. She'd taken it. "Hermie, buy yourself a Scotch. I don't want you around when the little lady and I start discussing contracts."
Herman had vanished.
Manelli had a habit at moments that meant something to those who knew him-he'd run his hand over his thick slick black hair. "Now, Jeanni, T tell you what. I'm going to give you a chance."
"I'm not good enough, I don't think, Mr. Manelli."
"Sure you are. You're fine. You said you were eighteen didn't you?"
"Yes sir."
"Then you're fine."
He'd sat at his desk. "The work is nothing, not hard at all. I think you'll like it. You sing two shows a night to start with. See we have a kind of floor show. And the customers like it to be, you know, varied. I know you aren't actually a polished singer, kid, but experience is all you need. We can give you that. But I don't know why I'm telling you all this. Know what I'm going to do? I'm going to let you start tonight. No sense in wasting a lot of time on descriptions when you'll find out what is expected of you for yourself."
Manelli had come toward her again. Without waiting for an answer he'd taken her by the elbow and led her from the room through a back door that led into a hallway. The corridor was dimly lit, just like the dining room, but the halls weren't papered with anything. These walls hadn't even been painted; they were raw concrete. He'd led her to yet another doorway, but the door was carved wood like the first one. It was reenforced metal. Manelli turned three keys in the triple lock and then knocked twice on a certain part of the door.
And it opened to him.
Jeanni found herself in a small slim room One wall was all curtains and the others were painted black to absorb the light. Manelli cut down on his electric bills.
In front of the curtains stood a microphone, and next to it a table with a control board on it.
"This is it, kid. This is where the singers work from. Now you will see why I didn't try you out with a piano. Cause you wouldn't be working with one. See? Our customers like class, and class is something special. You got to be different to be class. Now what is classier than a lone female voice, a voice streaming out of the darkness with a slow love tune. See?"
Jeanni nodded.
"Okay. Sing." Manelli had seated himself in front of the control board and flicked a few dials. "Any time you are ready, Jeanni."
Jeanni had taken a deep breath, and then she had begun to sing. She'd closed her eyes so that she wouldn't have to look at Manelli and she'd sung softly to herself standing in front of the microphone.
When she'd finished, Manelli had signaled her to pick another song. She had chosen "Melancholy Baby." And then another. And another. For an hour she had stood in front of that microphone in front of those curtains and sung her heart out, before he'd turned off the control panel and conducted her through the locked door way, down the dark corridor and again into his office.
"You've certainly earned yourself a drink, don't you think?"
"I'd like one, thank you."
He poured her a Scotch over ice. Without water.
And she had downed it. She was tired and bewildered but not unhappy. She didn't know what kind of a place she'd wandered into, but she was working. She was singing.
The liquor had had an extraordinary reaction on her. She'd thought she had seen Manelli peel off five one hundred dollar bills for her. He'd waved them in her face.
"This is a little more than your regular salary will be. I mean, you'll only be getting oh, four fifty ordinarily but this is a special bonus for joining up with my staff. Now. Jeanni, I want to give you some advice. I want you to let me ieii Hermie Huston to keep away from you. That guy is a hustler. I know because sometimes I put him to work chiseling for me."
"Do you think he'd take advantage of me?"
"He'd try."
"Then I would be grateful if you would...."
"Get rid of him for you? Okay." Manelli had cupped her chin in his hand. He stared directly into her young face and said, "I like you, kid. We're going to get along just fine. I can tell."
Jeanni had repressed a shudder as she answered him appropriately. Later she found that Manelli had been working her over, had been sinding out just how bad she wanted to work. He'd found out she could be bought. Three years later, when Teanri was older and far wiser, she'd been able to look back and recognize his methods. How else had Manelli gotten to be the boss? She'd liked the money and all of her fears and doubts and suppositions about the special services of Club Hades hadn't been enough to keep her from pocketing the five hundred and not mentioning to her parents in her very, next letter that she finally had a job. Singing.
Things had stayed pretty much the same for a week or two. She'd gotten used to arriving at the club in a taxi, wearing a new dress. A new dress for every night she stood in front of the curtains and sang slow and lovely ballads while Mike Manelli smoked and turned the dials and listened. She relaxed. Singing had become easier and more fluid,' she'd begun to let herself go, to sing and caress the lyrics and her confidence was reinforced. She was good; she had a future.
Jeanni often wondered what was on the other side of that wall of curtains, but she never let on to Manelli. She wondered just who she was singing to. Had she thought she was singing to Manelli alone? Had he made her feel that way?
None of it had made sense but the money was too good to ask questions.
When the dream of Club Hades came to an end, she wasn't surprised. Shock is something different from surprise. It is true she never could have imagined the facts about the club, but somehow she had known inside herself that facts don't count.
She'd sung two or three numbers when Mike had switched the dials off.
"Sweetheart. I think it is time you got to meet your audience and your fans. You may not know it but a lot. of our members are very eager to make your acquaintance."
"All right, Mr. Manelli. "If that's what you want me to do?"
"Yeah. I want you to. Sing me that sultry song, what was it ... heat something."
"Okay, Mr. Manelli."
He sat down at the table again, and his hands twisted the dials that Jeanni had grown familiar with. He looked significantly in her direction and she sang.
Slowly the curtains drew apart and silently crept toward the four corners of the room. Fascinated Jeanni watched them, forgetting for the moment to look at the space they had covered. The velvet curtains had hardly settled in their corners, when she thought to look at the wall.
It was a window.
She was on some kind of platform that extended into a room. She was high above the room, somehow, near the ceiling. It was an odd kind of room, more like an amphitheater, but there were no seats.
At first glance all was activity and movement and she could not make out what was going on. Then that all became clear. The song she was singing died away on her lips, but Manelli didn't seem to mind.
The rows were full of people.
People lying down.
Together.
And they weren't sleeping.
Slowly she began to make divisions between bodies. That wasn't easy. People kept switching. Jeanni moved closer to the window. And Mike Manelli turned another dial, making the sounds of the room below audible to her.
Laughter and sighing and tears. Gasps and groans and curses.
"Oh, give that to me, Harry."
"The blonde. Where's the little blonde I met here last night?"
"Please. Please. Again."
A man lay flat on his back, screaming for a woman and a beautiful brunette materialized out of the darkness and quieted him.
A woman whose breasts were large and naked offered one each to two different men who laughing caught her tips with flashing teeth. She screamed. Bui not with pain.
A young girl knelt before a large, fat man who had no hair on his head and no clothes on his back. Her lips crept along and he laughed with desire. Then he raised her up and sat her on his knees. She screamed But not with desire.
"I got to scream when I love. That's more exciting."
"Oh, kiss me again. Again."
"Yes, yes. yes."
"Where have I seen you before?"
"In the other corner. Earlier." They went on and on. Never stopping. And the cries reached a crescendo that beat on Jeanni's brain.
She couldn't leave and she couldn't stay. And she couldn't look away.
Mike Manelli stood behind her. His hands held her by the shoulders and his mouth whispered close to her. ear. "This is such a sweet little business. Don't you like this?"
She didn't answer. She couldn't.
Mike moved his hands lower, cupping Jeanni's breasts and pinching the ends. They stood taut, quivering. "I make a lot ii people happy. I like to make people happy."
"Close the curtains. Please close the curtains."
"You can walk out. I won't stop you. Leave."
A spotlight came on in the center of the arena. Two attendants carried a straight-backed chair into place and then lost themselves in the audience. A woman walked to the chair. She was blonde and beautiful ... every man's dream. Her breasts were large and pear-shaped and her buttocks a lovely cushion for her to rest on. Some of the men in the audience stepped what they were doing and called out to her. "Shelia. Me, my turn. Remember me, Shelia?"
She smiled at them and with her hands rubbed her voluptuous body all over; she rubbed her breasts, her full pear breasts, together and pinched them. She shifted a little on her chair.
The calls and sounds from the audience doubled. "My turn, Sheila?"
"Let me, Sheila."
Two men rose from separate parts of the room and rushed at the stage, but the attendants materialized from the darkness and shoved them back to their seats. And Sheila continued her lonely rites. She exercised every part of her body while the calls and the anxiety of the onlookers mounted, until she moved on her seat uncontrollably.
"Mr. Manelli. Take me away.': Jeanni rasped.
His hands were his answer. They dropped lower. He kissed the nape of her neck. Jeanni's mouth was dry and she groaned deep in her throat. But she didn't move.
On stage the girl Sheila smiled and then she pursed her lips together and whistled. Everything grew quiet downstairs. Jeanni strained forward to see what they saw, what was out of her line of. vision.
"Look to the right kid. If you want to see all that's going to happen."
Jeanni did.
From a corner of the room, two attendants were leading a hulking man with a dazed, stupid expression on his face. His neck was encircled by a metal collar to which leading chains were attached.
"Hello, Fred. My Fred," Sheila cooed.
She stood and kissed him on his flattened nose. She ruffled the hair behind his ears. Then he sat down.
"Fred. My sweet, sweet Fred. Make me happy. Fred. Make me happy."
The man growled a little. Then he let her lead his head where she wanted that to go. The room grew quiet.
Sheila threw back her head and laughed.
Jeanni turned away from the window. She looked at Mike Manelli. At his mouth. For a moment she poised before him watching him smile. Then she pressed against him and bit his lips. He began to laugh and pushed her down onto the floor.
And taught her. Everything.
Everyone was fine. Fine!
"Club Hades is a big business, kid. We specialize in all kinds of pleasure. For all kinds of people. The biggest wheels in town come here. That's why I never have trouble with the law." Manelli handed her a Scotch. Jeainni drank it down without stopping. It sang in her stomach but the song was nothing compared to the symphony played by her body a few minutes before.
"That room. Can anyone go into that room?"
"Sure. Not everyone wants to. We swing with the customers."
"Mr. Manelli, how did you know I wouldn't run out of that booth screaming. How did you know I'd...."
"Dig that? That's the chance I had to take. You're too expensive as a singer."
Things became clearer. Singing was an art Manelli didn't appreciate. If Jeanni wanted to keep making four hundred a week she would have to learn a different game.
"It's always good to have a sense of rhythm, kid. Your talent will come in handy. T don't mess with any weak sisters here. You stay with me, you get the best. All my girls got class."
She'd hesitated for a moment. A moment was all it took for her to remember the boat ding house and the days without food. "But not in that room. I won't go into that room "
"There ain't nobody who would make you. You ain't ready for that yet anyway. Hell, who do you think I am? Simon Legree? Now listen to me." Mike peeled off her weekly money but added an extra three hundred to the pile. "Get yourself some clothes. Wait a minute, I'd better get a girl to go with you." He picked up the phone. "Find Shelia and send her here. I don't care if she is in the big room. I want her."
Manelli grinned and closed in. "Hey, kiss me, sweetheart." Obediently she reached up and circled his neck with her arms. Her lips had found his. She concentrated on making that a good kiss, an exciting kiss. She was a professional now. She was going to work at her job.
Two years with Manelli had taught Jeanni all that there was to know. She was very successful with the customers, had more requests than she could handle. Once in a while she would sing in the dining room of the Hades and her voice had deepened in the years of her career. It was sultry and low; she made men sweat. She'd gotten everything she'd ever wanted; an apartment so high above the ground she could watch the planes pass, with carpeting so thick it was like walking on your knees; as many clothes as she could fit into her closets and an appetite for caviar. She was the top girl in Hades; Manelli and she got along like pancakes and syrup; and her salary had reached phenomenal proportions. All of it was tax free.
Then her folks had written that they were thinking of coming to hear her sing, and Jeanni had panicked. They had swallowed her web of lies so easily it frightened her. To keep them from going to Lido where she was supposed to be singing, she had returned home for a vacation.
And the simple life had made her guilty. The lies had made her uncomfortable. Every minute threatened her with exposure and now that two-bit stud had guessed.
Jeanni slouched in the seat of her pretty convertible. She pitched her cigarette out of the window and watched it glow itself to death in the road.
Let him tell them, she thought. I'm sick of the whole thing. If they would throw me out, life would be much simpler anyway. Let him tell them.
She started the car, gunning the engine hard and then slamming into first gear. The decision was made for her. Life was going to be much more straight forward.
The sooner she gets back to Chicago, the sooner she would stop feeling cheap. She was what she was. Marriage wasn't for her, and Swanik's Landing was not for her. She was a good pro. What did she care what they thought of her?
As she drove back to town, the wind made tears on her face.